A Marine veteran stole a truck and saved dozens of lives during the Las Vegas shooting

While the deadliest mass shooting in US history was unfolding in
Las Vegas on Sunday, a Marine veteran stole a truck and likely
saved about two dozen lives.

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Taylor Winston, 29, who served in the Marines from 2006 to 2011
and did a tour in Iraq, was with friends near the stage of the
Route 91 Harvest Festival when bullets began raining down on the
crowd, according to The
Daily Beast.

He initially thought they were fireworks, but then saw
"people ... scattering and screaming and that's when we
knew something real was happening," Winston told CBS.

Winston and his girlfriend, Jenn Lewis, started running with the
rest of the crowd, but got trapped by a fence, he said.

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"Once we got to the fence, I helped throw a bunch of people
over and got myself over," he told CBS. "It was a mini war zone
but we couldn't fight back."

Winston said he and Lewis then saw "a field with a bunch of
white trucks" and decided to stop fleeing and start
helping.

caption

Concertgoers flee gunfire at a country-music festival in Las Vegas, October 1, 2017.

source

David Becker/Getty Images

"I tested my luck to see if any of them had keys in it -
first one we tried opening had keys sitting right there. I
started looking for people to take to the hospital," Winston told
CBS. "There was just too many and it was overwhelming how much
blood was everywhere."

"We went back towards the gunfire and just started look for
priority victims and people with the most serious injuries to get
to the hospital," he told KGTV in San
Diego, his hometown.

"One of the hardest parts
was leaving everyone behind that I couldn't fit in," says
veteran who stole a truck to drive victims to hospital pic.twitter.com/1LGcoil1xn

While the bullets were still flying, Winston pulled the
truck up to a "make-shift hospital," which his other friends had
set up out of sight of the gunman, "and they started loading us
up with the most critical injured," he told CNN.

"No ambulances were immediately available. There was far
too many causalities for anyone to handle. Probably one of the
hardest parts was leaving everyone behind that I couldn't fit in
who were still critical injured," he said.

After Winston and Lewis took the first load of victims to
Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center, they went back a second
time.

caption

Las Vegas police run by a banner at the Route 91 Harvest country-music festival, October 2, 2017.

source

David Becker/Getty Images

Winston told The Daily Beast that they rescued 10 to 15
people in each trip, even later learning he saved a friend's
sister.

"I was in such a speedy movement I didn't assess anyone's
faces or anything," Winston told The Daily Beast. "Just wounds
and who was most critical. I was just trying to be efficient and
get the most serious critical condition people to the hospital
first."

He also told The Daily Beast that he doesn't know how many
of those he rescued survived.

"I can't be for certain. There's a few that I don't think
probably made it," he told The Daily Beast. "They were pretty
limp when we were pulling them out of the truck, but they still
had a pulse, so I'm hoping for the best."

"I think a lot of my training in the military helped me in
the situation. We needed to get them out of there regardless of
our safety," Winston told CBS.

Many on social media have since described him as a hero,
which Winston humbly denies."There's a lot of
unsung heroes that day that stood up and helped people," he told
KGTV.